'Too Many People Are Dying Without Dignity'

Too many people across England are "dying without dignity" because of poor end-of-life care, a new report says.

The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman's investigation highlights "tragic cases", including an elderly cancer patient who spent his last days in "avoidable" agony.

It found he was subjected to 14 unnecessary attempts to reinsert a drip, causing him further pain and discomfort in his last hours.

In another "appalling" breach, a mother was forced to call an A&E doctor from another hospital ward as her 29-year-old son was in desperate need of pain relief and on-call doctors were not responding.

It also says a 67-year-old man's family discovered he had terminal cancer after reading his hospital discharge note.

Every year, around half a million people die in England and for three-quarters of them, death is not sudden but is expected, the report says.

The Ombudsman, who makes final decision on complaints about NHS England, investigated 265 complaints about end-of-life care between January 2011 and April 2015.

Of those, some 136 were upheld or partly upheld.

The report used completed investigations to show where things have gone wrong.

It found instances of poor communication leading to families losing the chance to say goodbye to their loved ones, along with poor pain management and inadequate out-of-hours services.

Dame Julie Mellor, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, said it was up to the Government and NHS to use the insight from the report to improve care.

"Our casework shows that too many people are dying without dignity," she said.

"Hundreds of thousands of people are receiving good care at the end of their lives but, of the complaints we uphold, we find the same themes.

"Poor pain management so people are dying in pain, people not able to die at home when that's what they wish, and poor communication between staff and families so they know what's happening and can plan together."

Peter Buckle's wife Wendy died at their home in Warwickshire from a brain tumour in 2011, at just 54 years old.

He told Sky News neither he nor his wife were told the disease was terminal in the four months following her diagnosis.

"I think there's a balance between giving the patient and families some hope and being honest," he said.

"I think we would have lived those few months differently having been given the rather blunt truth."

Mr Buckle also says that while he had positive experiences he also, at times, felt "abandoned" with a lack of support and inadequate out-of-hours services.

"The one thing lacking was someone who was experienced co-ordinating all of this because the person co-ordinating all of it was a complete amateur, and that was me," he said.

"I had never nursed a wife through a terminal illness before and someone who had the authority and the resources and the responsibility to co-ordinate the various inputs in a more seamless way I think is what's needed."

Responding to the Ombudsman's report, a Department of Health spokesperson said: "These are appalling cases - everyone deserves good quality care at the end of their lives.

"The five priorities for end-of-life care we brought in emphasise that doctors and nurses must involve patients and their families in decisions about their care, regularly review their treatment and share patients' choices to make sure their wishes are respected.

"NHS England is working on making these priorities a reality for everyone who needs end of life care."